Build your own DVR

Hack Attack: Build your own DVR

With all the potential controversy and uncertainty surrounding TiVo firmware upgrades, the time to build your own DVR has never been better. With your own DVR, you can get all the benefits of a TiVo and more without the recurring cost for subscription. This week, I'm going to show you how simple it is to turn your computer into a DVR. After that, I'll show you a few ways that I use my DVR to take it beyond TiVo.

Whether you're using your current PC, repurposing an old one, or going all out on a dedicated DVR to put under your TV, you can get so much more out of your own DVR than you could ever get out of a TiVo.

Use your Wii as a Media Centre

Feature: Use Your Wii as a Media Center

This guide shows you how to set up your Wii as a media centre.

Tweaking your HDTV

Troubleshoot Your HDTV - Popular Mechanics

So you just bought an HDTV. You laid down serious cash for your new set, upgraded your tuner box and hooked it all into your surround-sound system. Then you turned it on and tuned into a whole new era of disappointment. Those HD pictures don't look as good as they should. The image breaks up into little blocks. Fast-moving objects aren't crisp. And standard-definition TV programs look like garbage. Is it your TV? Is it the fault of your cable or satellite company? The truth is that it could be either, or both. HDTV is still an evolving technology and plenty of glitches make it onto the screen. Some problems can be fixed with a simple adjustment, while others should send you back to the store with receipt in hand. And many problems have nothing to do with your set at all. Here's your troubleshooting guide.

Canadian banks - regulations may have saved them

The Galloping Beaver: Mr. Dithers may have saved the Canadian banks

It should come as no surprize then that suddenly the so-called over-regulated Canadian banking system is the envy of the global consumer banking sector and considered one of the most stable in the world. In fact, when Canadian banks have attracted the attention of the editor of Newsweek International, Fareed Zakaria, you might say they're a force to be reckoned with because they're so well regulated.

Canadian banks are well capitalized and poised to take advantage of opportunities that American and European banks cannot seize. The Toronto Dominion Bank, for example, was the 15th-largest bank in North America one year ago. Now it is the fifth-largest. It hasn't grown in size; the others have all shrunk.

Auto-Tune: Why Pop Music Sounds Perfect

Auto-Tune: Why Pop Music Sounds Perfect - TIME <full story

... Almost immediately, studio engineers adopted it as a trade secret to fix flubbed notes, saving them the expense and hassle of having to redo sessions. The first time common ears heard Auto-Tune was on the immensely irritating 1998 Cher hit "Believe." In the first verse, when Cher sings "I can't break through" as though she's standing behind an electric fan, that's Auto-Tune--but it's not the way Hildebrand meant it to be used. The program's retune speed, which adjusts the singer's voice, can be set from zero to 400. "If you set it to 10, that means that the output pitch will get halfway to the target pitch in 10 milliseconds," says Hildebrand. "But if you let that parameter go to zero, it finds the nearest note and changes the output pitch instantaneously"--eliminating the natural transition between notes and making the singer sound jumpy and automated. "I never figured anyone in their right mind would want to do that," he says. ...

Cones - art project in the Egyptian desert

Geoengineering: The Mysterious Cones of the Egyptian Desert

Donnie Darko sequel.

New York Comic Con: Donnie Darko Trades Jake Gyllenhaal For Sexy Mer-Sisters

Could be meat, could be cake...

Lots of cave pictures

Dark Roasted Blend: Caves: The World Beneath the World

Christian Bale apologizes

Stargazing <read full story

Following up on the recently released audio of Christian freaking out at the director of photography on the set of Terminator Salvation last year, Christian called in to an L.A. radio station to make an apology live on-air.

Conservatives promise money, but don't actually hand it over

78% of Building Canada Fund projects in Conservative ridings: Kennedy | Jerad Gallinger < read full story

In the first year following the launch of the $8.8-billion Building Canada Fund, the Conservative government flowed zero funding to infrastructure projects. Worse, last week officials at Infrastructure Canada admitted that of the $1.5 billion announced in its first two years of budgeted spending, only $80 million has flowed for municipal infrastructure projects across the country.

Conservatives will welcome Gitmo prisoners, just not the CANADIAN one.

A BCer in Toronto: Conservatives will welcome Gitmo prisoners, just not the Canadian one <full post

How messed up is this!...

But while he's looking at helping Gitmo prisoners bypass the immigration process and settle in Canada, perhaps Kenney might heed the pleas of folks like Bob Rae and groups like Amnesty International and see what he can do for the CANADIAN CITIZEN, Omar Khadr, who is also stuck in Gitmo and whom the government has shown little interest in helping. Bring him home and let the Canadian justice system deal with the charges against him.

"Death to Arabs" group and Peter Kent, Conservative MP

Dawg's Blawg: Peter Kent's Facebook friend <full post

As noted in an earlier post,
our new junior foreign minister Peter Kent was in the news again
recently, shrilly demanding that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez do
something, pronto, about a vicious attack on a Caracas synagogue.

Just who is Peter Kent, again? I have noted before that he's got some rather questionable associations.
And now a Jewish peace activist informs me b/c that Kent has been
palling around with at least one other known extremist. He's got the
screenshots to prove it, too.

Meet Meir Weinstein, aka Meir Halevi, the Canadian Director of the Jewish Defense League. The JDL was founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane.

Weinstein and our junior foreign minister are Facebook friends.

Olivia Chow's response to our "let them stay" letters

we move to canada: olivia chow's response to our "let them stay" letters <full post

* The Committee recommends that the government immediately implement a program to allow conscientious objectors and their immediate family members (partners and dependents), who have refused or left military service related to a war not sanctioned by the United Nations and do not have a criminal record, to apply for permanent resident status and remain in Canada; and that the government should immediately cease any removal or deportation actions that may have already commenced against such individuals.

More Dollhouse Trailers

Dollhouse: Dollhouse Manages To Make Brain Electrocution Sexy AND Creepy < watch them

Thor Rolls a Joint

Superheroes On Drugs: Thor Rolls A Joint <read/view

Cannibals in Russia

Prosecutors: Russian girl's killers ate body parts - Yahoo! News

Warning: gruesome.

"The arrestees said they ate the girl's body parts because they were
hungry," Kapitonov said. They told investigators they baked some body
parts with potatoes, he said.

Titanboa

Largest prehistoric snake on record discovered in Colombia (Video)

Named Titanoboa cerrejonensis by its discoverers, the size of
the snake's vertebrae suggest it weighed 1140 kg (2,500 pounds) and
measured 13 metres (42.7 feet) nose to tail tip. A report describing
the find appears in this week's Nature.

Bacon Man!!!

Bacon Man is the King of Kitchen

Green comet approaches Earth

NASA - Green Comet Approaches Earth

Oldest animal fossils discovered

Oldest Animal Fossils Discovered | Wired Science from Wired.com

The story behind the Christian Bale video

globeandmail.com: Batman goes Bale-istic <full story

Christian Bale can be heard in newly surfaced audio delivering a
long, profanity-laced verbal thrashing to a cinematographer and anyone
who tried to calm him down on the set of the upcoming
Terminator Salvation.

The three-minute clip was posted Monday Feb. 2 on the website TMZ.com.

In it, the actor who portrayed Batman in
The Dark Knight
rails against cinematographer Shane Hurlbut for apparently walking
behind co-star Bryce Dallas Howard and through Bale's line of sight,
considered a film-set foul.

Link to news story video

Link to the full rant on TMZ.com

Facebook Depression

New Illness: Facebook Depression? - ReadWriteWeb

This may sound like a joke, but it's not: researchers at Stony Brook University
in New York have found that too much Facebook usage can leave you more
prone to anxiety and depression...that is, if you're a teenage girl. In
a study, a group of 13-year old girls were evaluated by psychology
professor Dr. Joanne Davila and her colleague, Lisa Starr. A year
later, the researchers followed up with the girls, testing them for
depressive symptoms.

Canwest (inc. Global, and the National Post) coming to an end?

Blast Furnace Canada Blog: Is The End coming near for Global? < read whole post.

Canwest is in big financial trouble. Stocks just dropped 40 cents this morning.

Doom doom doom! - The Recession and the Flames of Change

Montreal Simon: The Recession and the Flames of Change < read the full post.

... The International Labour Organisation predicts that another 50 million or so will join the jobless queues around the world, out of a world workforce of around 3 billion. The wildcat strikes at refineries and power stations across the UK, and anti-government protests from Latvia and France to China and Mexico, may be just the beginning of much more radical, violent backlash against globalisation.
...

Dead Space coming out for Wii

Wii: Dead Space Wii Announced

Due out later this year.

The Sour Dough Bacon Cheeseburger

The George Foreman Sour Dough Bacon Cheeseburger : Regretful Morning

Mmm-mmm bacony goodness!

The Christian Bale Remix video

Facebook | Bale Out - RevoLucian's Christian Bale Remix! <watch da video!
Okay, everyone has posted the crap out of this, but, here it is, just because.

WARNING: not for children or polite adults.

Your partner's health can affect yours

Psychology Today: In Sickness and In Health < read full post

Before you say, "I do," scrutinize your lover's drinking habits. Or eating patterns. Your choice of romantic partner helps determine how healthy—or how sick—you'll be.

Orion map

SGU_RGE-objects-Orion-070315-20-50mmf5p6-STL-H37x10m-LRVB6x10m-VRG1LL-LM-cp8.jpg (JPEG Image, 1598x2400 pixels) - Scaled (34%)

Moss Mat - I want one!

Mat made of moss stays alive with the help of bath water - Telegraph